Quite right Vidiot... but just to be super picky, being authoritarian, that is a stickler for rules, is not quite the same as having authority or using authority alone as the basis for control. They could be authoritarian and Bible-based but here is evidence in the letter of reply from HQ that in the end as a JW, you just have to believe the Watchtower text without a Bible precedent. I reckon that is "authoritarianism" or a better word to describe the GB would be "autocratic".
Half banana
JoinedPosts by Half banana
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31
Bethel Provides Excellent Clarification of "This Generation"
by berrygerry inbethel clarifies "this generation" via letter.
/s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctzzxpiqj2w.
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That's it! The Jesus stories are most reasonably explained as myth. History makes this obvious.
by Island Man ina careful examination of the historical pagan religious context existing at the time of the genesis of christianity leads any reasonable person to conclude that jesus is just another one of several similar myths.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7teoa9ark.
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Half banana
Bender does not tax the brain like Jesus and is much more fun. However...my argument would accord with Carrier's; if the stories of the saviour figures preceded Jesus with details exactly the same for those attributed to Jesus; an original Jesus in the first century is a fraud. It is true that real people can become fictionalised but think on this; no one can live the life of a mosaic of historically earlier stories.
As Carrier mentions the accounts in the gospels are a syncretism or fusion of many old saviour heroes brought together under one roof.This is clearly a political move for the purpose of being attractive to a mass audience; something miraculous for everyone, the ideas being drawn from many saviour cults. When you read the nativity for example this story pre-dates the first century and all of its features features, the three Persian astrologers led by a star, a virgin birth, the animals in the stall, the death of first born, trip to Egypt, shepherds in the fields...all these and many more are pure ancient pagan tales inserted into the "gospel". They have no basis in history... they are fact-free myths.
So here is the crunch point: when did any fictional character jump off the page and become a real breathing person?
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Parrots Turn Carnivores.....Media Article ..Sure to get J.W.`s all excited .
by smiddy inthe first part was a heading in the herald sun newspaper tues.sep.15 ,2015 melbourne victoria .. , lorikeets and other parrots are becoming meat eaters---and researchers want to know why.. griffith university professor darryl jones has heard the herbivorous bird was eating mince left out by bird feeders in brisbane (australia ) "in two weeks i had about 500 emails from across the country all saying lorikeets were eating meat" he said.. that will surely get the faithful thinking the big "a" is almost upon us.. in the 1960`s i was told that buzzards and other carnivorous birds were laying twice as many eggs than was normal proving the big "a' was almost here.. here we go again.
smiddy.
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Half banana
Did someone say the GB are turning cannibal? perhaps I misunderstood. -
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Humanism and Witnisam.
by The Rebel inwell it seems for many on this board the time came to leave the w.t and cross the bridge in to a real world.
speaking for myself l feel i did not enter the cold and lonely world i was lead to believe i was entering.
rather i have discovered it was no great loss leaving a world that had protected me with false, dreams, fantazy and false promises.. but what have i really achieved by my leaving that i value?.
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Half banana
This thread so far is so good it should be compulsory for all JWs to read!
For me stopping going to the meetings was a real pleasure for many reasons. Not having to listen to the brain-dead zombies praise the governing body at stultifying meetings, listening to saccharine indoctrination about love and paradise... all in the past... Oh the joy! I had the time to do things I wanted to and nobody was going to criticise me for it like attending Humanist meetings and doing prehistoric archaeology and taking university courses. They may have criticised but who cares? Perhaps the best bit which I didn't see coming, was that after being a JW drone for all my adult life up to that point; I now became myself...who I really was...my natural identity. This was a completely private thing not something anyone else would know about. The result was that I realised I had struck out against this false authority holding me in their straightjacket. I began, and without too much smugness, to be pleased with my own boldness in having made this very important shift in my life, from uncomfortable mental slave to a free person... in my late forties and just growing up!
As a JW everything seemed to be contaminated with a veil of grey "worldliness". Now the real world unfettered by religious obligations, is to me endlessly fascinating and rewarding to contemplate (and I contemplate a lot!)
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Bethel Provides Excellent Clarification of "This Generation"
by berrygerry inbethel clarifies "this generation" via letter.
/s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctzzxpiqj2w.
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Half banana
This is concrete evidence that the WTBTS is not "Bible based", it is authority based.
JWs are a club for insiders only. To get the benefits of joining you don't have to know what it says in the Bible but you do have to learn and repeat these special passwords: "The governing body is the exclusive channel which Jehovah is using". If you can't bring yourself to say this, you cannot come to the party.
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Are the J.W's reaching a "Tipping point"?
by karter ini haven't been to a meeting in 15 years but my mother and sister are hard as j.w's.
the brothers they are appointing elders are at best suspect like one guy from my old hall made elder,big time drug used before becoming a j.w his talks are all over the place and would have struggled to make m,s years ago but with at least 60 to 70 % of young ones leaving the pool to pick from is at best reduced.. 2 other recent elders both young and zero life experience both on benefits one not well at all falls asleep all the time.. the decent,kind elders mostly older and are decent people with alot of life experience are burning out fast as there are so few of them left like 3 per congro of 100 publishers.. then you have the rich elders who wouldn't ever think of inviting some poor older or mis-fit person out to the expensive placers they go to as they couldn't afford to go so they are above the r&f and the r&f get pissed off with them.
then we have the ones who have "put the kingdom 1st" who are now old worn out and barely getting by from welfare cheque to welfare cheque that are saying "the system should have been over many years ago" it's still here and they are struggling everyday.. then there are the pioneers who have a low payed reduced hour job that seem to think anyone who has anything is totally materialistic and looks down on anyone getting a new car buying a house ect.. along with the child abuse issues,the generation change,access to information the the g.b don't want anyone to know ,not to mention the issues around blood.. is there a tipping point coming????
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Half banana
Religion is a drug, cocaine is not very good for you but it's very popular.
A tipping point coming? Let's hope so.
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Sheep who mate in front of stripey trees will produce stripey offspring
by purrpurr ingenesis 30:37 leaving aside the whole "joseph cheats laham out of his flock" issue.
one passage of scripture that i've missed until now is 30:37 where it says how joseph got all the sheep to be stripey etc ( btw have you ever seen a stripey sheep?
cos i certainly haven't!).
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Half banana
No, it's true Purrpurr...I tried this and I've got stripey children now. -
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The only way to know God exists!
by iconoclastic indo everything as god would do if he were present here.
this will attract his attention, and you will experience his invisible hands blessing everything you do, giving you results more than what you sowed.. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
hence put to the test the above, and then you can make really authentic comments!.
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Half banana
Iconoclastic by name but most definitely not by practise... You make wildly disjointed assertions hardly any of which can be supported in the tangible world. The problem lies in that you speak the language of “belief” where anything is possible and which requires no facts or evidence just hope. Nothing useful can come from this.
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If they go bankrupt, so what?
by maksutov init seems likely that the watchtower is worried about its finances, given the downsizing, property schemes, and money-grabs we have been seeing over the last few years.
perhaps they suffered badly from the financial crisis.
for sure, there will be more expenses to come from child abuse payouts.
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Half banana
If they went bankrupt they will have been very foolish with their funds...but if they did, they may not even tell the bros. They have vast assets which they can use as collateral to borrow money and if that does not work out they can sell off property to reduce or pay off debts. The key thing for them is to keep the faithful in the fold and paying money into the coffers but even here many will suspect what would be going on and pull away.
The trend in religious membership is to be “spiritual”. This late 20th century phenomenon is part of the personal and self regarding approach to faith which disregards authoritarian dogma. It is in evidence here on this site where believers report that they go along to the meetings but do not accept the Borg mentality and regulations... and it probably is part of the reason why WTBTS funds are dropping.
The beliefs could well remain if the org collapses. Already the doctrines of JWs are evident outside of the WTBTS, especially in Africa, (BK is JWism on steroids) they will splinter more rapidly if the money fails and the centre does not hold so the fear and threats from the anxious GB would increase, losing many believers in the process and the remaining flock would have to adopt a siege mentality... very unhealthy!
Well that’s one scenario!
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If they go bankrupt, so what?
by maksutov init seems likely that the watchtower is worried about its finances, given the downsizing, property schemes, and money-grabs we have been seeing over the last few years.
perhaps they suffered badly from the financial crisis.
for sure, there will be more expenses to come from child abuse payouts.
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Half banana
Mak, they have ab initio equated their income with divine blessing. This notion is built into the governing body DNA.
Due to the world market decline from 2008, possibly by bad investments, bad publicity and potentially crippling court cases; the income has dropped. It is probably significant that the regular contributions from the rank and file have diminished greatly due not only to the aforementioned troubles but also from a new wave of scepticism from within the congregations. I see this as an automatic response to doubting the authority of the leadership...withholding contributions to an already very rich religious organisation with Armageddon after all “just around the corner”...why would they need so much money? Rank and file drop in contributions must signal alarm to the GB.
Nevertheless after a very cursory investigation on this site, it looks like the JW org annual income is around 1.5 to 2 billion Dollars. Such an amount would give a lot of creditworthiness with any bank and therefore flexibility in difficult times.
Let’s hope the punters keep reducing the contributions and the expenditures rapidly increase! The scenario will be played out as a sign of the imminence of the end as encouraged by Brooklyn... but where can they go when this stunt is also proved to be false? Only if they have squillions of Dollars in property and in the bank, and with an effective propaganda machine, can they live to fool the flock again...and hence I think the reason for their ruthless money grabbing.